SEOUL, May 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump said that
“nobody’s happy” after North Korea raised the pressure over the future of
their deadlocked nuclear negotiations by launching two short-range missiles.
Trump’s second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi in
February broke up without an agreement or even a joint statement as the two
failed to reach a deal on what Pyongyang would be willing to give up in
exchange for relief from sanctions imposed over its banned nuclear weapons
and ballistic missile programmes.
Since then Kim has accused Washington of acting in “bad faith” and given it
until the end of the year to change its approach.
In what South Korea President Moon Jae-in termed an “element of protest”,
the North “fired what appeared to be two short-range missiles” on Thursday,
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.
They were launched from Kusong in North Pyongan province it said, and flew
eastwards for 270 and 420 kilometres (170 and 260 miles) across the North.
It was Pyongyang’s second such move in less than a week, after having not
launched a missile since November 2017, shortly before a rapid diplomatic
thaw eased high tensions on the peninsula and paved the way for the historic
first Kim-Trump summit in Singapore last June.
At a White House event, Trump said US authorities were looking “very
seriously” at the launch of the “short-range missiles”.
“Nobody’s happy about it,” he told reporters.
“We’ll see what happens,” he added. “I know they want to negotiate, they’re
talking about negotiating. But I don’t think they are ready to negotiate.”
Thursday’s launches came hours after the US Special Representative on North
Korea, Stephen Biegun, arrived in Seoul for talks with South Korean
officials, in his first visit since the Hanoi summit.
– ‘Peace and security’ –
North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the ruling party,
devoted its entire front page and half of page two to the launch on Friday,
with 16 pictures, the main one of Kim watching the launch from a camouflaged
shelter.
It was a “long-range strike” drill, the official Korean Central News Agency
said, without specifying what kind of weapon was fired and avoiding the words
missile, rocket or projectile.
Thursday’s missile firing came after North Korea carried out a military
drill and fired multiple projectiles on Saturday, with at least one believed
to be a short-range missile.
And in a potential indication of more launches to come, KCNA said that Kim
“set forth important tasks for further increasing the strike ability of the
defence units”.
“The genuine peace and security of the country are guaranteed only by the
strong physical force capable of defending its sovereignty,” it cited him as
saying.
The pictures of the two launches released by the North appeared similar,
and experts said at least one short-range ballistic missile was involved on
Saturday.
A report on the respected 38 North website said debris left by the launch
suggested it was a “direct import” of a Russian-produced Iskander — a
single-stage, solid-fuel missile.
If North Korea had imported Iskanders from Russia, the report added, “it
has an existing capacity to deliver warheads to targets in South Korea with
great precision”.
Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington had all refrained from explicitly calling
Saturday’s launch a missile — the South used the term “projectile” — which
could jeopardise the ongoing diplomacy if it violated UN Security Council
resolutions against ballistic technology as well as Kim’s announcement of an
end to long-range missile tests.
– ‘Highly displeased’ –
If Thursday’s launch proved to be a ballistic missile, South Korea’s
President Moon said, even if it was short-range, “it has a possibility of
running foul of UN resolutions”.
Pyongyang’s latest move had “an element of protest and is a pressuring
action to steer the nuclear talks in a direction it desires”, he said in an
interview marking his first two years in office.
“It appears the North is highly displeased that the Hanoi summit ended
without agreement,” he added, but warned that the launch “could make
negotiations more difficult”.
A summit between Moon and Kim a year ago was instrumental in lowering the
temperature, but since the Hanoi summit the North has blamed Seoul for siding
with Washington, leaving inter-Korean relations in limbo.
In New York, federal authorities said the US had taken possession of a
North Korean freighter seized a year ago by Indonesia on grounds of violating
UN sanctions.
The officials said Wise Honest — an 18,000-ton, single hull bulk carrier –
– had exported high-grade coal and brought back machinery to the impoverished
and reclusive country.